Details: By: Alfred Thayer Mahan; AOS Naval Non-Fiction - General

The history of Sea Power is largely, though by no means solely, a narrative of contests between nations, of mutual rivalries, of violence frequently culminating in war. Therefore the history of sea power, while embracing in its broad sweep all that tends to make a people great upon the sea or by the sea, is largely a military history; and it is in this aspect that it will be mainly, though not exclusively, regarded in the following pages.

In 1859 Alfred Thayer Mahan graduated second in his class from the U.S. Naval Academy. In 1885 he was appointed to the Naval War College to teach naval history and tactics, and he was an absolute genius as a naval historian and theoretician. HIs books were avidly read by naval officers the world over. They shaped the way modern navies would be organized—and, more importantly, revolutionized the way ships would fight.